New York is allocating $8 million for the Open Educational Resources Initiative at SUNY and CUNY to cut the high cost of textbooks for students. According to Governor Cuomo’s Office, textbook costs can total as much as $1,200 a year so OER offers freely available, high-quality books and other materials that can be downloaded, edited and shared. In the current academic year, OER has replaced textbooks in more than 4,000 course sections with enrollments totaling nearly 100,000 students, saving more than a combined total of $12.3 million.

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